


the wolf is giving birth

by mooselady



Category: Ava's Demon
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, im sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:16:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5413034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooselady/pseuds/mooselady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rabbits are such easy targets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the wolf is giving birth

**Author's Note:**

> posted this on my tumblr a while ago but I decided to go ahead and post it here too. enjoy mon petit chou-fleur
> 
>  
> 
> [magpielady.tumblr.com](https://magpielady.tumblr.com/)

She had hurt herself again.

It was her fault, of course. Ava Ire was certain that the icy pain thrumming in her knuckles, down to her fingertips was all consequence of her own doing. The nasty claw-marks across her face were her fault too. The sting coming from every nerve, every piece of shredded hope in her system, was only her’s to blame.

Why didn’t she listen to her gut instinct when it told her to flee instead of fight.

So here she was, alone in the damp, chilled girls’ locker room of her high school. The small girl was holding in on herself, crouched on the ground, low mewls of pain being kept locked in the back of her throat as her hands dropped in front of her, unable to move them because of the insufferable agony.

She was bleeding.

All she could think about was the slicing pain; and, how eventually someone would have to find her. How someone would see this carnal mess of a creature hiding behind a shower curtain. How they would see the plip plops of tiny red blood and red scratches and red hair tangled into this, this  _thing_.

She was the redhead of the school, but if she got out of here she was sure she was going to cut it all off, every last crimson strand until she was Nobody.

She should have stayed home today.

——————–

It was his fault they hadn’t spoken in almost a week.

Odin would see her in the halls, bumping through the crowd, unseen and unnoticed by her taller classmates. She kept her head down, and when they passed each other, the small girl would flinch away, turning to face the wall, her walk picking up pace.

It hurt him in more ways than one, but the knife that dug the deepest was that he used to hold her hand in the hallways to ensure no one would walk into her or push her or deliver her a cruel remark.

The girl locked deep in his heart hated crowds and noise and unblinking stares.

He realized without her he was just as equally lost and confused.

He was holding on too tightly to the straps of his bookbag as he watched her meander through the halls. A girl bumped into her shoulder, shooting her a venomous glare before continuing on her way.

Ava looked up, her eyes meeting his for a brief moment. The sight of her face caused him to raise his hand, hoping to get her attention.

She turned, ducking out of the way of someone’s locker and into a classroom.

 _Find her, and apologize_ , he berated himself.  _You know what you did hurt her._

_Go find her._

He sighed, scowling as he stepped into his third period class, ignoring the mantra of his morals ringing in his ears.

Foolish, arrogant pride was the black tarred poison just  _dripping_  from his family tree.

———————-

A week earlier, on a grey Friday afternoon after school, she had agreed to go back to his house on his insistence that there was something he just  _had_  to show her.

Ava kept trying to hide her smile on the drive to the Arrow homestead. Even if the sky was overcast, threatening to give way to rain at any moment, it was still nice to know that he had been so adamant on showing her this secret of his.

They passed by fields of wheat, their golden stalks ready for harvest. The land and sky were a calendar of their own, deciding year after year when the crops were ready, when the storms were ready, when the babies were ready to be born.

Tomorrow was her birthday, and this time, people actually remembered.

“I w-won’t give anything away,” he declared, pressing the brake of the truck and turning into the gravel driveway of his home. “But I really, really th-think you’re going to l-love this.”

They were greeted by the Pack.

An assortment of dogs, all of which Odin claimed were not exactly “tame” but still took shelter at the Arrow home because they were fed regularly, gathered at the approaching truck, barking and nipping at the tires. The dogs ran alongside them, darting and dashing out of the way of the vehicle as it came to a stop just outside the garage.

Odin turned off the ignition, dropping his smile when he saw the nervousness in her eyes.

“They d-don’t bite. I swear,” he assured her.

Ava let out a tense laugh. She had been here several times over the past few months, and even among the unruly behavior of his little sisters and Olai’s ability to say whatever he deemed vulgar or discourteous, it was the wild Pack that made Ava the most on-edge. 

These animals weren’t lap dogs. They went where they wanted, did what they wanted, and at times, would only listen to Olai’s high pitched whistle to halt.

They weren’t meant to be petted or doted on by strangers.

Odin interrupted her thoughts as he opened the truck door and stepped out. “W-Wait there. I’ll open the d-door for you.”

“No, I-” she called out meekly, watching as he shut the door, the dogs following closely at his heels as he walked briskly to the passenger door. He opened it as she brought her legs around, going tense when a particular large hound jumped forward, placing his paws on the interior and sniffing the hem of her jeans with rapt attention.

“Oh,  _get back_ ,” he hissed, using his knee to shove the hound’s snout aside. “You h-have all day to sniff and you choose n- _now_  to be a nuisance.”

“Ava,” he beseeched, holding out his hand. “It’s okay. Th-They’re just curious.”

She took his hand uneasily, holding unto her bookbag and sliding off the seat onto the gravel, feeling the crunch of rocks beneath her shoes.

“And I think they r-really like you,” he added as they made their way into the yard towards the front porch. 

Ava looked up to see the crowd of dogs trotting alongside them. She kept her hands close to her chest as she mumbled, “Yeah. All except  _her_.” She nodded in the direction of the leader of the pack, a small mountain Feist, brilliant in her red color. A piece of her ear was missing, as well as a noticeable white scar going down her eye and across her muzzle. A lower ranking dog rubbed at her chin, to which she bared her teeth.

“The Royal Highness h-herself? Nah. She just d-doesn’t like being affectionate.”

“I don’t get why she’s their leader,” Ava commented as they stepped onto the porch. The Feist heaved her small body alongside them, trotting to the multiple metal food bowls kept beside the rocking chairs.

“You w-wouldn’t think she is, considering she’s the smallest of the p-pack,” Odin agreed. “They m-must know something about her that we d-don’t.”

The pack leader dipped her head, nudging at the bowls with her nose. She sat expectantly, the dull thump of her tail drumming against the porch.

“Al-Alright,” the older boy mused, gathering the bowls on top of each other and stacking them in his arms. “I’ll be r-right back.” He motioned for Ava to follow him as he stepped off the porch, dropping unto the grass and going around the side of the house. She followed, dropping her bookbag unto a rocking chair and pausing to look up at the sky when she heard the distant roll of thunder.

She jogged to catch up, joining him at his side and hooking her arm around his.

“I like your house,” she said, leaning her head against his arm, feeling the sharp of his elbow dig into her cheekbone. “I like how you can see the stars better here at night.”

He slowed to match her gait, feeling the unhurried slur of her words brush over his skin.

“Even if my f-family is cr-crazy?” he muttered, instantly regretting the bitterness in his words when she let go of her hold on him, moving in on herself and crossing her arms over her chest. 

“I like your sisters,” she remarked, idly stooping down to examine a mushroom hidden in the grass. “I like Magpie.”

She joined him by his side at the metal bins lining the back of the house, watching as he began scooping dry feed into the bowls.

“M-Me too,” he said with a smile. 

Ava propped her elbow onto the adjacent bin, feeling the tiredness of the school day wash over her as she studied the crooked lopsided grin on his face, at the way his canines poked sharply at his bottom lip.

“You’ve got some serious wolf teeth Odin,” she stated flatly. “It’s like that thing we’re studying in biology.”

She curled her fingers into claws with a menacing grin.

“You know.  _Apex predators_.”

He echoed her laughter as he ducked into the bin, reaching for the very last bit of feed at the bottom.

“What’s my animal?” she asked, doing her best at staying aloof and mature. “Am I  _prey_ , or predator?”

The girl’s attention instantly became attracted to the blinking fireflies near the shed behind the Arrow house. She sauntered away, but not before eyeing his back, the curve of his spine jutting out as he bent over the edge of the bin. She could see it, the large scar running across his waist, unnaturally white and profound even in the evening’s dying grey light.

She fought the urge to pull his shirt back down over his exposed skin, unsure if he would become offended by her touch. The curiosity was just within arm’s reach, but she knew better than to pry. An answer to her question would have been nice, however.

“Uh, a r-r-rabbit!” he answered, lifting himself up and dumping the food into the bowl. 

“Why?” the girl called out, leaping forward and attempting to catch a firefly in her hand.

“Because they’re s-so  _tiny!_ ” he answered her, raising his voice over the distance. 

He mumbled to himself, “And you c-can never get too close to one w-without it running off.”

“I’m h-heading back!” he shouted, the food bowls cradled in his hands. 

Ava turned, opening her mouth to answer him, when her eye caught sight of something glimmering in the wood shed. She saw Odin already walking back to the front porch, and she believed it wouldn’t hurt to just get a peek at what it could be.

She ducked between the jarred door of the shed, poking her body into the darkness. It smelled of heavy metals and straw, the air thick with dust and something else she couldn’t name, something inorganic.

She stepped in closer, gazing up at a shelf and seeing a shiny piece of jewelry hanging on a nail.

That was odd, she thought. Who would leave such a nice piece of jewelry in a tool shed?

She turned to see Odin standing in the doorway, eyes wide, his face pale.

His expression made her jerk, going rigid.

“What?” she asked, blinking quickly, her voice going hard.

“Ava,” he breathed, stepping forward. “I sh-should have t-told you.”

The girl felt uneasy at the seriousness to his words. “What? What are you talking about?”

Odin’s face stared in confusion, before looking at something behind her.

Ava turned, following his gaze.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust.

There were rabbit furs hanging from the rafters.

She gasped, stumbling over her feet as she stepped back, covering her mouth. There were so many, to her horror, that they were stacked on top of each other, the coats draped and piled like blankets.

No. Like bodies. Dead and lifeless stripped  _bodies_.

Ava heard him step closer behind her, causing her to lurch and veer back, staring at him and watching his every move.

“You killed  _all_  of these?” she asked, her voice high and strained. 

“Hear m-m-me out,” he implored, fumbling through his words. 

She was never suppose to find out. He was suppose to protect her from such an ugliness, but he had failed.

Again.

“People p-pay for the f-f-fu-f-fur-” 

“And the meat?” the girl interrupted.

He nodded, sighing, dropping his head to face the ground. However, something sickly complacent stirred darkly in his throat, black like tar when he raised his head and spoke once again, “I did th-this, all of this, for my f-family.”

He knew, even as he skinned these creatures in the dark of the night, their flesh cold and lifeless, how she would feel about this. How it would frighten her to know that this wasn’t a hobby, or a game, or a sport to the Arrows.

This was survival. He was hunting to survive.

Unfortunately, by the quantity of his kill, perhaps he was better at it than he would like to admit.

She stepped around him, her shoulder pointed west towards the escape.

“You’re proud of this, aren’t you?” she scoffed coldly, inching towards the exit. 

They both couldn’t ignore the roll of thunder as it warned the forest of the approaching storm. It sliced and cracked and lulled over the sky as he answered her, a snide arch to his brow, arms folded.

“Yeah. I am.”

She wanted out. Not from him, but because she couldn’t stand to see the skins hanging before her like laundry on a clothesline, swaying gently in the summer breeze, the bristles reminding her of something too vulnerable and weak to run away from a bullet.

“Why rabbits?” she questioned once more.

The thunder filled the silence just as he opened his mouth.

“Because,” he proclaimed, “rabbits are s- _such_  easy targets.”

He realized the mistake of his words the moment after he said it.

Ava Ire turned on her heel, shoving the door so hard that it swung open, hitting the outside wall with such a force that the wood panels cracked on impact.

The storm was getting closer, the humidity in the air causing beads of sweat to form at the top of her forehead as she trounced through the grass.

 _Don’t look back don’t look back don’t look back_ , she demanded of herself.

_Go on. Let me get struck by lightening. Go on, whoever is running this show, let me get hit-!_

He was following her. His footsteps were going the same pace as her heartbeat.

“Wh-Where are you g-going?” he asked, taking long strides to catch up to the shorter girl. She spun around before he could place a hand on her shoulder, spitting out heatedly, “Do.  **NOT**. touch. me.”

Odin retreated into himself, asking again above the din of the thunder, “Where are y-you going?”

“My house,” she said, ignoring the way he was crowding in on her as she continued to walk away.

“If you w-want to go home, th-then let me drive you-”

“No thanks. I’ll walk,” she interjected stubbornly.  _Don’t look back, keep going-_

“It’s over t-ten  _miles_. And it’s about t-to storm. Ava?”

She reached the front porch, hefting her bookbag over her shoulders with clipped force. The usual calming chime of the glass bottles hanging from the awning were now ominous, nearly threatening in the blustering wind. It was ringing in her ears, over and over, piercing in the way it burned under her skin like acid.

_Rabbits are such easy targets._

It sounded like something kids would chant over and over on a bus, maddening and tormenting in each relentless syllable. It was cruel in its truth, she realized. Cruel that she  _was_  too easy to pick on, too easy to poke and prod and push and shove.

Knives and blood and staying quiet. That seemed to be all that Ava Ire was good at.

She believed snarling at the leader of the dog pack would make her feel more powerful, and less like a rabbit caught in a snare. The Feist was absent from the perimeter, however.

Odin Arrow would have to do then.

She spoke quickly, short and violent in her delivery.

“Don’t talk to me anymore. Don’t walk me to class anymore either. I’ll start riding the bus again and you won’t have to drive me to school.”

She added briskly, hoping it would be the final sting to the cut, “Have fun being an apex predator, Odin. It suits you well.”

He stood there, speechless, watching her as she took step by step over the front lawn and into the gravel driveway.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t walk the ten miles. The teenager just couldn’t let her go out there alone, in the dim grey light of the falling sun. Shadows were just shadows, until they started to creep closer, revealing teeth and eyes and growling stomachs.

He jogged to catch up to her.

“I’m driving y-you back to your house. You d-don’t have to speak to me, but l-let me take you home.”

Ava halted, swaying on her feet, refusing to look him the face. If she was suppose to be tough and unrelenting in her anger, then why did she feel soft at his words, to where she just wanted to go in his room and sit and talk and forget this whole senseless conflict.

She eyed the window of his room on the second floor before nodding, turning to his truck and walking quickly ahead of him.

_They’ll always hurt you in the end._

_And you were stupid to believe he was ever any different._

The passenger door of his truck always had a habit of being difficult to open. He hesitated, watching her as she struggled to free it open.

“Do you n-n-need h-help….” he spoke up from the other side, to which she shot back, “ **NO**.” With the force of her outburst, the door flung open, smacking her in the chin. The tiny girl reared back, holding her face in her hands, fighting the wrathful compulsion in her chest to not punch his truck, or throw a rock at it, or do something that would feel equally matched to the white hot pain of her now injured chin.

The older boy jerked at the impact, watching as she tried to muffle any sounds of distress. He wavered, stepping quickly to one side, then back, caught in a tide of being unsure if he should help her or not.

If he should ask her to go into the house to talk.

If he should apologize.

He knew he had growing up to do when he got into the truck, concerned words pleading to escape his throat but childish arrogance keeping them locked inside.

Odin sat in the truck, watching her face turn a fiery shade of red as she scrambled in beside him, slamming the door with as much ferocity as she could muster.

In this pained confused state, Ava wasn’t sure at this point  _what_  she was even mad at. Odin? Herself? The storm or the dog pack or her own inferiority or the people who were making dinner tonight with rabbit as the main course?

“Take me to my house, stop sitting there and just drive me back to my house,” she practically hissed through clenched teeth, ignoring the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and the way her words felt much too strained, too powerless.

It was the longest, most silent car drive either of them had been in. There was no music, no stories to be told, no laughter or hidden blushes or singing.

The thunder finally relented into a downpour when they reached her house in the suburbs.

“Please p-put ice on y-your chin, okay?” Odin saw the dull faint watercolor of a purple bruise right at the bone of her jaw. Her bones weren’t brittle or fragile, nor was the skin she had healed over and over, insuring that over time no one would be able to hurt her more than she could. It was the look on her face, however, that worried him. 

It was delicate. The flicker of her crimson eyes were delicate, fleeting and darting. He had hurt her and like a foolish child he wasn’t able to convince the apology to pass his lips. He knew his mother would be sorely disappointed in him if she were here to witness this bitter fight unfold.

The truck hummed, filling the quiet as they listened to the rain fall outside the cab.

Ava used her shoulder to free the rickety door, stepping unto the wet pavement. At any other occasion, under any other circumstance, if this was a universe where ends were barely being met, she would have asked him to come outside and play in the rain with her.

What was the point of goodbyes? She never put a band-aid on a cut anyways before, so why start now?

Odin watched the small redheaded girl as she trudged through the sodden front yard, her head carried low, shoulders hunched. He put the truck in drive, but couldn’t find the will to leave without making sure she got inside safely first.

She waited with each passing minute until someone finally let her in, her clothes soaked and hair stuck to her round face.

An hour later, curled in the corner of the bathtub, hot water falling over her, Ava realized with a pang of sorrow that this would be the sixteenth year in a row that she would be alone on her birthday.

_You should have expected this would happen eventually._

“I’m good at pushing people away,” she whispered, barely audible.

 _You’re good at pushing people away_ , she agreed.

When he arrived home, ignoring his sisters’ pestering and his brother’s barrage of demands, Odin shuffled into his room, shutting the door behind him, not bothering to turn on the overhead light.

For in the watery slate shine coming from the window, he could see the surprise gift he wanted to show her leaning against his bed, the colors seeming to fade the longer he stared.

He had painted a portrait of her for her birthday. Bright sanguine streaks of paint on canvas that once held such hope now just seemed to be a reminder of how he had failed her.

The rain eventually ended, but on other sides of the forest, they both wished it would continue throughout the night.

—————————–

It took him approximately twenty-four hours since the fight to buy pot.

It had taken even less time than that for him to have completely smoked all of it, resulting in him laying on his bed, listening to the floor vent go on and off, on and off, like clockwork throughout the night.

He was good at being lazy, if he wanted to.

Every night, once the last flame of the sunset disappeared, leaving him wanting and waning, he locked the door to his room. Closing it shut like a coffin, he floated in and out of deathless sleep as he listened to the crickets chirp from his open window. Olai would be pissed if he knew that the teenager was sitting on the roof under the cover of dark, lighting his pipe and inhaling the drug’s smoke.

Lying there, counting stars, tracing patterns in the air with his outstretched hand, he thought about her.

There was Castor and Pollux, the two twins of the Gemini constellation.

He remembered what she had told him about the demigods.

“They were both sons of Zeus,” she explained. They were in class, speaking in low voices amongst the drone of the lecture. She was drawing tiny black stars on his hand with sharpie. “But here’s the thing: only one was immortal. When his mortal brother Castor died, Pollux begged Zeus to let him die too so he could be reunited with his twin.”

She sighed, soft lips pouting in concentration.

“They loved each other but I guess circumstances just weren’t that good to them.”

Odin watched the blackened sky, concentrating on those two lights.

What was she doing right now, at this moment? Was she looking up at the stars too?

He wanted someone to touch him in the dark when he got like this.

One afternoon, a few days after she had seen the rabbit skins, Olai approached his shut door, banging it with his closed fist.

“Open the door!” he demanded, jerking the doorknob.

Odin slowly freed the door from its hinges, drowsy and in tune with every little noise that  _wasn’t_  his brother’s yelling.

“You were suppose to pick up your sisters from school.”

Olai snapped his fingers in front of his sibling’s face.

“Hello? Earth to Odin! What the hell is the matter with you??”

With a long drawn out sigh, Odin answered, “I f-fo-for-for-”

“You forgot,” he interjected sarcastically.

Olai squinted, studying the redness of his eyes.

“Are you high?”

Odin shifted away, mumbling a quick “no” as he childish tried to cover his eyes.

“You’re fucking high right now, even after I told you to stop doing that shit in the house.”

He added bitingly, “You think Dad would be okay with this? How about Mom?”

Odin rubbed at his forehead, feeling the heat race to his heart.  _Please stop please stop please stop_ , he entreated to some unknown force, maybe a ghost, or a cataclysm, or perhaps a long drop from the roof of the house.

“Whatever Odin. You want to rot away in your room smoking pot like a loser your whole life, then fine. But keep doing it in this house, and I’m kicking you out.”

It was only when his brother was at the bottom of the stairs, out of earshot, that Odin muttered to thin air, “You’ll be s-sorry when I’m gone.”

————————

She was alone again.

Ava began talking to Maggie, although the conversations seemed to be clipped and strained, bordering on “I will speak to you”; however, “Don’t take this kindness as forgiveness.” By happenstance, the two girls found peace in the school greenhouse.

Maggie, for the most part, loved the fact that the greenhouse was off-limits to students without teacher supervision. Ava just liked the fact that she could talk about something,  _anything_ , with another person.

There were brisk conversations about flowers, or biology, or botany. There were no mentions of their troubled pasts, or any blatant recognition of current pains and worries. Ava hoped that with time she could start sharing deeper concerns with Maggie.

She forced herself to ignore the fact that the clock was ticking, and she was running out of solutions in her bottled-up silence.

At some point, a group of girls would poke their heads around the greenhouse entrance, convincing Maggie to join them for lunch, and then she was off again.

It was very, very quiet among the flowers without her.

Ava would pick a few, mostly the limp dying ones, and press them in between her books. Sometimes the dew would smother the ink, causing the words to become runny and illegible.

That was okay, she decided. She wasn’t really interested in reading like she used to be anyways.

Sometimes throughout the long school day, she would see him in the hallways. Same frayed leather jacket. Same slouch to his shoulders. The same way he always seemed to be on edge that someone was following him, stealing quick glances behind him wherever he went.

In class, she tried to ignore the feeling that he was simply just across the room, dozing off or drawing in his notebook.

He wasn’t always on guard.

A week after they had stopped talking, a senior with a nice smile approached his desk before class had started, asking to borrow a sheet of paper and a pencil. Ava peeked from the corner of her eye, looking up from her book but staying still as she watched him.

She knew him too well. He was blushing.

“Thanks man,” the other boy stated, trailing off to his desk after receiving the paper and pencil. 

Odin was trying to hide it, trying to hide the tiny smile and the noticeable hue darkening on his neck.

Ava let her eyes wander back to her book when someone abruptly blurted out, “Why the fuck are you smiling?”

She jerked, flitting to try to see what the outburst was for. A friend of the boy was calling him out, veering back in disgust.

“He asked for a pencil. Why are you smiling like that?”

“Are you queer or something?”

Odin stared, an animal caught in the headlights.

She was sure no one could see his hands shaking as he shook his head, saying, “No? No, no I’m not.”

Should she say something? The other boys seemed to be closing in.  _Say something_ , she pleaded.

“I always knew you were weird, Arrow. Just about everyone in your family is,” they mocked.

Ava heard someone pipe up from the back of the room, “His sister’s crazy. I mean, like, bat shit  _crazy_. I heard she starts talking to demons and shit in the middle of class.”

“Yeah,” another student remarked, louder than before, “the whole family’s weird.”

No one seemed to notice that he had already risen from his seat, nearly sliding against the wall in an attempt to get away. The tall boy nearly toppled over a bookbag, causing an uproar of snickers to float across the room as he left, leaving his desk bare and empty.

 _Go after him_ , Ava thought.  _Just make sure he’s okay._

The teacher entered, plopping stacks of paper on his desk, informing everyone with a disheartened glare about low test scores.

“They don’t accept failures in college,” he reminded. “Keep this up, and none of you will make it in the  _real_ world.”

 _This **is**  the real world_, she incited in on herself.  _And it’s predators versus prey inside four concrete walls._

She scribbled in her notebook, nearly splattering the ink of her pen everywhere in her furious markings.

Odin didn’t come back for the rest of class.

As soon as the bell rang, signaling class was over, the girl slammed her bookbag over her shoulders, exiting as quickly as she could among the throng of students.

At what point had she made a silent promise to herself that no matter what, she would always make sure he was safe?

_————————–_

In his fear, he had stowed away in the janitor’s closet until the bell rang, signaling lunchtime.

Being slow about it, he sat in the courtyard alone for the break, picking off pieces of his sandwich and tossing it to the crows. Their company was nice, but it was impermanent. Birds always have somewhere to go, and with no cages to hold them back, these birds could do what they like, and go wherever they wanted to go.

On his walk down the hall, he recited over and over how many cages there were in his own life.

Odin didn’t actually see the fight happen. He only knew about it from the uproarious shouting coming from down the hall, near the cafeteria.

He ignored it, not wishing to see such a display of pointless violence. Today was the last day of school, signaling the very end of his four years at this institution.

He should be glad about leaving. Today should have been a day of nothing but good spirit, sunshine and hopeful smiles. It  _should_  have been, but time was passing painfully slow.

Rolling his eyes at the student’s chanting, he continued on his way until two freshmen passed by, nearly jumping on each in their excitement.

“Did you see it?! Wrathia had her in a headlock!”

“No, the best part was that little redhead girl  _tore Wrathia’s shirt off_!”

Wait.

A redhead girl?

“H-H-Hey!” 

The freshmen turned, their attention caught by the older boy.

“Who w-was in the f-fight?” he asked. Something unsettling was churning in his gut. Why was he asking? Go ahead and find her. Stop asking questions that you already know the answer to.

“Wrathia Bellarmina, a  _senior,_ and uh, that really short tiny girl? Long red hair? Her face looks like a tomato? You two used to be together all the time.”

Odin was already taking long strides down the hallway, hearing their last bit of commentary reverberate distantly: “Wrathia completely fucked her face up!”

To his dismay, the crowd was already dispersing, going off in their separate ways.

He saw Wrathia with a group of friends flocked alongside her. The sleeve of her shirt was ripped, revealing a few scratch marks alongside her arm. She screeched, holding her busted lip, “When I find her, I’m going to kill her!”

She screamed even louder, her eyes crackling in a furious rage. “You think I’m kidding?  _ **I’ll murder her!**_ ”

Odin grabbed a student by the shoulder.

“Wh-Where’s Ava?”

She shot him a look of confusion, shrugging him away as she stated, “Who?”

“Ava Ire, the other girl in th-the f-f-fight,” he replied, fumbling through his words in his hurry.

“She ran off. I don’t blame her though. I thought Wrathia was going to tear her to shreds.”

At the edge of that answer, Odin was already moving away, trying carefully to keep his distance from anyone as he stalked the hallways, wondering where she could possibly be.

He realized remorsefully that this school was full of hiding places.

At the ring of the bell, the halls emptied, leaving them too bare and too quiet for comfort. Tread lightly, he believed, and no one will stop you. He stepped down the stairwell, glancing through the window of the gymnasium when suddenly he halted.

That was her bookbag lying on the ground, just outside the girl’s locker room.

Before any prying eyes could watch him, Odin opened the door into the gym, making a beeline straight for the locker room. Upon getting closer to her bag, he realized it had been slung against the ground, causing notebooks and pencils to roll out, strewn about the area with no regard.

He never thought the sight of pressed flower petals, crumbled and stepped on, would be so troubling.

The girl’s locker room was dark, save for the green unnatural light shining in the middle, matching quite ominously with the mold and mildew and dried insects, forever entombed in a tiled graveyard. The grime of this emerald light was making him nervous, uneasy in that he wasn’t sure what he would see once he found her.

“A-Ava?”

He found her like a wounded animal inside an abandoned shower, curled into herself, holding her hands out in front of her as if she were waiting for someone to take hold of them.

Odin bent down on one knee, imploring her to look at him as he asked, “Wh-What happened?”

Why did circumstances have to meet at this point, at a crossroads of wounds and pain and unresolved conflicts?

She wasn’t talking.

“Can you s-say something?” he asked gently. The girl was hiding her face behind a curtain of unbrushed red hair, velvet under this false light.

“I hurt myself,” she breathed. “I was looking for you, but…”

He watched as she tilted her chin, exposing her face to reveal three red claw-marks running from her the start of her forehead, over the temple of her head where he had kissed her countless times before, across the roundness of her nose, cutting deeply at the edge of her mouth where it finally stopped with a bead of blood at her chin. Her eyes were tinted pink, puffy and tired from crying. The tears had been smothered over her face, the saltiness stinging at the torn skin.

“Wrathia did this,” he stated, brushing her hair over her ear so he could look at the injury closer.

“No.” 

She held out her hands further, brushing her fingertips over his knees.

“I did this.”

Odin looked at her hands, the palms still turned down to the unclean, unwashed floor. A jolt of real, unmasked worry coursed through his body at the sight.

Her right hand was only bruised, a timid color of raw red bubbling at the surface of her skin. It was her left hand that made him reach out, holding it as slowly and gently as he possibly could. The knuckles were a deep purple, the thin skin sheltering her bones exposed and torn apart. It was crooked where it shouldn’t have been, disjointed and disturbed of its usual placement.

“I got really mad,” she spoke up. Something started to give with her voice, a landslide of heartache threatening to spill over. “I got so mad after I ran away that I…I went in here, and I punched the wall. And the only thing I could think about was trying not to scream.”

Her voice cracked, as hard as she tried to deny herself permission to cry.

“I’m so sorry,” she spoke.

“No, please d-don’t be sorry. You have n-nothing to apologize f-for,” he returned, holding her at the tops of her arms. 

“I don’t get it,” she cried, looking away and at the tiled floor. “I don’t talk. I keep to myself! And they still come after me!”

She moved as if she were going to lash out again, or hit the shower wall or purposefully injure her left hand even further. Odin blocked her path, crouching even closer until he sat down beside her.

“Why did y-you f-fight back this time?” he wondered aloud.

Ava concentrated on the events before this, but she could hear it more than she could see it.

 _Do yourself and everyone else a favor_ , Wrathia had said, smiling daggers in her direction.

_And kill yourself._

The fight was short-lived. In the midst of wild throws and punches, scratch marks and nails and claws, Ava had blacked out, succumbing to that dizzy wormhole of resentment and rage inside her. There was no victory flag, no sound but static crackling in her ears.

People were staring, but isn’t it always a spectacle to watch the mouse bite back after being cornered by the cat?

Her hand felt numb, pricks of pain splicing at the bone, some sort of ache drumming with each beat of her heart.

“My parents took the lock off my door,” she whispered, hiccuping back the pained wail in her body.

“Wh-Why?”

There was a silent pause. Someone had left a faucet running in one of the sinks nearby.

“I think they know.”

The tears started again, abrupt and all too sudden, making her face swell with heat.

“I want to go home,” she wept, covering her face, the pain of her left hand keeping it stiff. 

He nodded, bringing an arm over her shoulder.

“I’ll t-take you back to y-your house. We c-can ditch class, it doesn’t m-matter right now-”

“No,” she said shakily. “I want to go  _home_.”

A house with drawn curtains and staring skeletons hanging from the closets just wasn’t the place she wanted to be. She needed a hearth, and a fire, and the quiet rapt of someone checking in on her, at least for the time being.

He listened intently, then remembered when she had hooked her arm around his, speaking into the crook of his elbow while fireflies glittered in the blue dark.

_I like your house. I like how you can see the stars better here at night._

“Alright,” he said, upholding his silent promise. “I’ll take you to m-my house. We’ll go t-together.”

She lifted herself up. There was no need to follow, or trudge behind glumly like an injured animal. He stayed right by her side, placing her books into her bag, sweeping up the flower petals with the palm of his hand, carefully setting them back into the spine of her books.

He pulled her bag over his shoulder, matching her gait as they left the gym.

“We’re not going to tell anyone?” she sniffed, using the sleeve of her shirt to rub at her nose. “That we’re leaving?”

Odin shook his head as they exited through the double doors, stealing quick glances up and down the hall.

“Do you remember all th-those stories you m-made up about escaping school?” he said. “Well, that’s what we’re doing r-right now.”

They kept close to the back of the buildings until reaching the student parking lot.

Time, for her at least, was being measured by the nasty throb in her hand, the pain being amplified with her heartbeat.

She chewed back a yelp when it brushed against the dashboard of his truck, causing her fingers to bend with too much force.

The drive was quiet. All day the sky had been promising rainfall, charging the air with electricity with an advancing storm.

Ava was grateful for this. She was sure that at this hour, she couldn’t bear to be in sunshine for even a second.

————————

In the driveway of his home, Ava furrowed her brow, watching the Pack condense around his truck.

“Where’s the Queen?” she asked, taking note of the missing leader. 

“She went m-missing,” Odin said, turning the key out of the ignition. “She’ll come back, but I th-think the Pack is lost without her.”

Ava rolled her head against the seating, pressing her cheek against the stickiness of the cab’s interior. The tiredness was in every piece of her, even the parts that couldn’t be seen to the naked eye.

It was with a heaviness that she carried herself alongside him to the front door.

The Arrow house was empty, dark and undisturbed as they entered the home.

“I’ll get some ice f-fr-from the fridge, okay?” The older boy was stealing quick glances at her from over his shoulder as he went into the kitchen, leaving her silent. She contemplated the difference of this darkened house versus the white bright lights of the school. The thoughts were small, as if being plucked on the string of a harp, tick tick ticking away with each passing second the longer she was alone. She thought she was going to start crying.

It had only been a week, but already she had missed the smell of his house, old and weary in its wood frames and brass embellishments.

“We c-can head upstairs, if th-that’s okay,” he said on his return, a cloth wrapped around ice cubes in his palm. 

“Ava?”

She looked up, eyes fluttering into focus.

“Yeah. Okay,” she mumbled. Her feet felt too heavy as she followed him up the stairs. She didn’t remember there being this many steps. How long had she been gone?

She let her uninjured right hand feel the wall as they walked up the steps to his room, the floorboards creaking in their own familiar way.

Her fingertips were sodden black, she realized, when they reached his bedroom. Ava didn’t have to ask, because she had seen it before. It was gunpowder.

“It’s…m-messy. That’s my f-f-f-” he paused, picking up canvases that had been strewn on the floor, newsprint and haphazard sketches drawn in charcoal, littered like feathers.

“ _Fault_. It’s my f- _fault_.”

Studying the chaos, she stated, “It’s okay.”

“You haven’t been smoking, have you?” she asked, drifting towards his bed and sitting down with a sigh.

“I h-haven’t been smoking cigarettes,” he answered, shoving the unfinished paintings under his bed. He lifted himself on his knees, resting his chin on the bed. 

“Good,” she said, her hands lying in her lap, eyes closed. Turning her head the girl asked wearily, “Can I sleep? In your bed?”

“I’m just really tired,” she added as he stood up.

“Y-Yeah,” he told her. “I’ll l-leave. I’m downstairs though, wh-when you wake up.” She took the cloth filled with ice as he handed it to her with a small smile.

At the click of the door shutting, Ava looked around the room. The light shined grey like it always did from his window. There were splatters of paint here and there, some red, some gold, a few dribbles of dark indigo condensed in the crevices of the wood floor.

When she crawled into his bed, nestling under the covers and breathing in the familiar scent of pine and soap, she realized she wasn’t just tired. She was exhausted. There was no other way to describe it, except complete and utter exhaustion.

Ava remembered where he kept his childhood friend. She reached under the pillow, pulling out the worn frayed fox plush usually squished between the headboard and the mattress. Cradling the fox in her arms, the cold of the ice spreading over her hand, she finally let her eyes close.

Maybe it was safe here. Maybe the woods would guard her body long enough for her to rest. Maybe the boy downstairs, flitting and anxious in each skittish step, would keep watch while she left the waking world, if only for a little while.

——————–

“I think he’s depressed,” Raven said, speaking loud enough to ensure her brother could hear.

“What are you talking about? Boys don’t get depressed,” Crow replied, eyeing him meticulously. 

“You kn-know I c-can hear both of you, r-r-right?”

He was curled on the couch, dozing off with half-lidded eyes.

“And I’m n-not depressed,” he muttered.

Raven abandoned her drawing, to which Crow made a scribbling mark over it just for the sake of her absence. Climbing over the couch, stepping on his ribs in careless fashion, his younger sister sat crouched like a cat at the top of the cushion, staring down at him. She rested her head in her hand, chiming, “Then why are you so sad all the time?”

“I’m not,” he replied dully.

“Then why do you lock yourself in your room all the time?” Crow persisted, tapping her pencil against her artwork.

Odin brought the thin blanket closer over his face. He was freezing, his body tense to the frigidness in his blood.

“You’ll understand wh-when y-you’re older.”

“Odiiin, that sounds like something  _Olai_  would say,” Raven countered, lazily pawing at the ends of his black hair. She spoke more seriously, “You’re not mad at us, are you?”

Their brother peeked out from behind the blanket.

“I’m not m-mad,” he stated.

Raven crouched closer, asking in a matter of fact tone, “Are you sad that you’re leaving for college?”

He sighed, resisting the urge to retreat from the living room.

“No, he’s sad that Ava doesn’t come around here anymore,” Crow piped up.

“Is this some s-sort of interrogation?” he spat icily. “Are you two s-s-sudden psychologists or something?”

Crow and Raven turned to look at Magpie when she spoke from the corner of the room, reading a book in the large velvet armchair.

“We’re your family,” his sister asserted, flickering her eyes up from the page. “We’re the closest to a pseudo psychologist that you’ll ever get.”

“That’s reassuring,” Odin mumbled into the couch cushion. Raven let herself slide from the top of the couch unto his side, jabbing him in the ribs with her knee.

“Are you sad about Ava?” she asked, resting her head on his arm. 

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Ava’s upstairs,” he stated, barely audible even in the quietness of the room.

“What!  _Really_?!” Raven exclaimed, sitting up so quickly that her hand slapped his face in excitement.

Her twin mirrored her expression, setting down her pencil. Even Magpie grew attentive, waiting for him to explain.

“She’s s-sleeping. So l-l-leave her be,” their brother simply remarked, glowering darkly at where Raven had smacked his face.

“Did you make up?” Magpie called from across the room. Odin peered at her, knowing all too well by her expression that she knew he hadn’t. She was smart, and crafty, but he relied on his sister as his better half, a double in what he was lacking. He opened his mouth to say something when they heard a tiny creak come from the stairs behind them.

Raven gasped, tumbling over the top of the couch as she stood on top of Odin’s ribcage, nearly bouncing in eagerness. “I drew a picture! Do you want to see it?” she declared at the small redhead.

“In a second,” Ava yawned, rubbing at her eyes. She could see Odin struggling to look at her from the couch, dark black eyelashes appearing around the corner. Still delirious with sleep, she spoke slurred, trying to tone down her disappointment in him.

He had  _promised_  weeks earlier that he would stop smoking. Did a week of her absence really cause him to relapse so quickly?

“Odin. There’s a carton of cigarettes inside your pillowcase.”

She bit back the urge to say, loud and clear, ‘ _You lied. We made a promise_.’

At the words, he scrambled off the couch, nearly falling to the floor as the blanket tangled around his legs. He motioned across his throat, entreating her with wide eyes to follow her to the kitchen.

“ _What_?” she hissed, feeling the stare of his sisters as they left the room, Odin pressing his hand against her back.

Once out of earshot in the kitchen, he stammered erratically, “Th-Th-They don’t kn-know.”

Ava just tilted her head, squinting up at him.

“I d-d-don’t w-want them to know.”

She whispered back, feeling the chill of the air conditioning start at the vent beside her. “Why all the secrecy? Olai smokes.”

The boy brought his hands up to his chest, tensing up and then going still.

“It’s different,” he said, exasperated. “I-I-I, I love them and I know th-this would hurt them.”

Ava blinked, taken aback by his confession. In all her time of knowing the teenager, she believed he would never be one to admit his emotions, even if they were broken and disjointed in nervousness. She leaned, resting all her weight on one leg, her sore hand dangling awkwardly by her side. “I’m sure Magpie knows,” she stated calmly.

“Of course M-Magpie knows. You c-can’t hide anything from her,” he said back, swallowing thickly in distress.

The shorter girl chewed at her cheek, looking quickly from him to the window. Her eyes followed the path she had taken a week earlier in the midst of a storm, after learning of his grisly secret.

“Well, I’m not gonna tell anyone,” she said, the flash of her hair catching in the light. “You can relax.”

It was almost spooky, she believed, how the shadows met and cut across his face. Was he closing his eyes, or looking away? Was he looking dead at her?

How many more cigarettes was he hiding?

His betrayal flared once more, causing her to blurt out, “But  _why_? You told me you would stop. Odin, you know how bad they are-”

He shook his head, letting his hands cup over her elbows. “I h-have stopped. I kept m-my promise.”

It was all too familiar, the way his fingertips trailed down her arms until they were barely holding her hands.

“There’s only one in the c-carton. I j-just…I don’t know wh-why I kept the very last one.”

At least she had been honest with him, he thought, in her stern gaze and unwavering stance. The puffy hot redness of the scratches across her face were already healing, giving way to a less noticeable pink color, pieces of dry skin sticking out oddly at the corner of her brow.

He knew, even in the most petrified, inconsolable parts of his apathetic heart, that he was going to miss her; from the way she grounded him when he strayed, to her sentimental starry eyed, wish-wash dreams, bright and colorful in the dreariness of cloudy days.

She moved away, breaking their shared gaze as she asked, “What time is it?”

Odin cleared his throat, retreating his arms back to his sides as he looked at the clock on the oven.

“T-Time for me to make dinner,” he announced. He stretched forward, pressing his palms against the kitchen counter, popping his back.

Ava scoffed under her breath at the sight of his exposed skin, the shadow of his hips jutting out sharply. She denied the heated blush burning at her cheeks as she directed mockingly, “Pull your shirt down.”

He looked up.

There was a silence, unlike before, that filled the room. As tempting as it was to give her a sarcastic remark, Odin just continued to stare, sure that she could hear his heart suddenly beating in nervous clamor.

He straightened his back, the spindly arch of bone disappearing as he moved away, gathering pots and pans from the pantry.

She felt the heat of embarrassment rush over her face. How could she possibly admit that she had been staring at his scar? It was the greatest secret he had, even among cigarettes and marijuana and loose animal skins hanging from decrepit rafters.

Ava stared at the stacks of bills on the counter, listening to the clang of metal, trying to decipher why exactly he had acted so oddly.

The older boy just hoped that she hadn’t noticed he had become thinner since the last time they spoke.

Even more worriedly, he believed that she was disgusted by what she had seen.

—————————–

The night was as old as they believed it to be.

The two had stayed up, talking softly, listening to the crickets chirp from his open bedroom window. It was dark out. From the undercurrent of the trees, the leaves rustling back and forth, Ava could see just the sliver of a moon, a chandelier in the night-sky. At the sight of the stars, she seemed to breathe easier.

Letting her bandaged hand dangle out the window, feeling the stickiness of the summer night, the girl could feel that strange, wild call that reverberated inside her heart. She never spoke about it, only listened, and allowed herself to feel it. There was always the howl of some animal from far away, deep in the forest, that sang to her. She could live among the animals, she dreamed. She could abandon the bright lights of her school and flee to the forests, barefoot and dirty and careless. She could leave all of this behind and simply just become a myth, a fable, nothing but a story.

It was all just a dream, however.

Even in the stammer of his words, she was patient in listening. There seemed to be so much he had kept to himself for the past week, and in turn, he laid on the bed, his stomach pressed against the mattress, listening to her voice carry with it all the pains of the day’s previous events. There just seemed to be so many words and ideas just begging to be spoken in the midst of this summer’s eve.

The girl believed, so fiercely in her gut, that his presence alone was good, safe and warm and inviting in every sense.

Still, she waited for an apology.

Arrows just never seemed to be too good at admitting their wrongs.

From her seat at the window ledge, her arms wrapped close with her knees pressed against her chest, Ava began humming to herself. The crickets wouldn’t mind, she hoped. Neither would the moon, or the stars. The boy lying on the bed watching her wouldn’t mind either.

“I know th-that song,” he said.

She nodded, stopping in the middle of the chorus to speak. “It’s my favorite.”

“I’m worse at what I do best, and for this gift I feel blessed,” he rasped, his voice so low that she could scarcely hear him.

She raised her brows, surprised.

“You don’t have a bad singing voice,” she said with a smile. 

Odin looked up from where he was tracing his finger over the wooden floors, returning her smile.

“Neither do y-you,” he commented, bringing both his hands underneath his chest. “You h-have a beautiful voice.”

Ava rolled her eyes, biting down her laugh and turning away as he spoke out again, “You do! I l-love hearing you s-sing in the truck when I’m driving.”

She turned, the words tumbling forward earnestly, “And I love singing in the truck when you’re driving.”

The redhead rubbed at her face, speaking softly.

“Can I come over there?”

Her bare feet had already touched the floor when he said, equally as soft, “Yes.” She placed her knee onto the mattress, pulling at the ends of the over-sized shirt hanging loosely over her frame.

The movement was slow, but it seemed to make sense to them both as she curled up on her side to lay beside him, their noses inches apart, wrapping their arms around each other.

While the rest of the world slept, Ava Ire and Odin Arrow stayed awake, listening to each other’s breathing. It was impossible to tell the time, but in their own quiet rhythm, maybe keeping up with the hour didn’t matter.

She kept her injured hand over his waist, unable to bend it in fear that it would inflict more pain. The girl knew she should try to let it heal, but there was something so sickly satisfying in feeling the sharp jolt, the bone and tendon crying out in shock throughout her nerves.

She moved her hand underneath his shirt, placing her palm over his scar, the softness of his shirt covering the purple bruises of her flesh.

His heartbeat stammered; she could hear it, picking up pace as he curled his fingers over her wrist. Neither of them moved as he whispered hesitantly, “Wh-What are y-you doing?”

Ava let her hand slip out of his gentle grip, moving away. He looked scared and confused, an expression she had seen before, when a stranger moved too quickly in the hallways of school, or yelled too forcibly in his face.

“Can I touch it?” she asked. “Your scar?”

She watched Odin’s eyes flash white, staring at the thread patterned carefully into the bed cover. He wanted to be touched, and it felt horribly pathetic to say out loud. There was more than just a sliver of flesh along his side missing from him though. What would she have to say about all the ugly, unruly parts of him?

He nodded into the bed, closing his eyes as he felt her hand, small, barely flexible from her injury, glide smoothly over his scar, starting from behind him, then to the very end near his stomach.

It was happening slowly. At the light brush of her fingertips, he reached up to cover his face with his hand. She was being careful, and above all else, reverent.

All his life, that scar had been a hideous reminder that Fate should have let him die.

Ava heard a choked gasp escape his throat, causing her to look up. The bed was wet where his face lay. Perturbed, she stared, then she realized he was crying.

“I’m so sorry!” She quickly moved her hand away, freeing it from the warmth of his skin. “I shouldn’t have done that, I didn’t-”

The older boy desperately wiped at the tears, speaking hoarsely.

“It’s o-o-kay. Ava, it’s  _okay_.”

He was shaking, dropping his hand to hold her’s, the salty tears still wet on his hands.

“I’m j-just a little bit s-scared.”

She looked at him, unmoving, patient. Odin didn’t cry. He ran away, or gave the silent treatment, or kept quiet about his troubles, but he  _didn’t_  cry.

“Of what?” she asked. “Why are you scared?”

He answered her unsteadily, a weak wobbly rattle to his bones.

“No one’s ever t-t-touched m-me like this before.”

“Like what?” she pressed. “You mean touching your scar?”

The corners of his mouth turned in a smile, wavering and temporary in his usual somber appearance.

“I m-mean I c-can’t remember the last time someone’s touched me l-like they love me.”

He covered his eyes again, forcing the rawness in his throat to go away, for every tense and stressful muscle to halt its emotional betrayal.

Ava watched him, worried.

“Ava,” he said, muffled words caught in his hand. “I’m s-s-so  _sorry_.”

She placed her hands over his face, pleading for him to look at her. He was worn out, very slow tears falling unto the bed. There seemed to be a never-ending sorrow, ebbing out with each breath.

“I hurt y-you and I don’t kn-know how to fix it,” he lamented, holding her by the wrists.

They laid in silence, listening to the noiseless hum of the fan above them. It was carving through the air like the push and pull of the ocean, seemingly meshing into the summer night’s own melody.

In the distance, a wolf was howling to a star filled sky. They listened until they could hear a second wolf join in, farther away, but still sending its call along the wind.

Ava, sure of her own voice, spoke calmly.

“Did you know wolves will howl nonstop if they are separated from an important member of the pack? It’s proven. They have anxiety when their partner is missing.”

He relaxed, the crook of her elbow tucked under his ribcage.

She sighed softly, feeling the familiar scratch of his nails over her back, up her shoulder blades, stopping at the back of her neck.

He waited until he felt like he could stop crying.

“I th-think about your voice alot,” he said, his thumb rubbing slow circles into her neck. “I think about y-your stories. Your s-songs. Your laugh.”

His words were slurred, trailing off into dizzy tiredness.

“I am going to m-miss you, so much. I j-just…”

He leaned in, kissing her on the head. “I w-want you to be safe,” he said, his words mixing into each and every kiss, feeling the flecks of torn skin near her eye, planting an earnest kiss on the top of her nose. “Be s-safe while I’m gone.”

There had been alot of “I’ll see you after class” kisses this school year, and hidden “I think we’re alone now” under the bleacher kisses. They were all quick and flurried and broke apart with nervous smiles and raucous, timid laughter.

But when Odin heard the best part of his favorite song, he was sure that’s what kissing her felt like, similar in the way that when Ava was under her bed covers during an afternoon thunderstorm, warm and safe, listening to the downpour; that is what she believed kissing him was like.

He pressed his lips against her’s, feeling her smile spread across her face, breathing in the way she smelled like vanilla and something older, like an ancient story waiting on the top of the library shelf, just waiting waiting waiting for someone to take the time to read her.

Ava relaxed her mouth, feeling as soft as the stillness of the night around them. She drew back slightly, giggling, “Go to sleep.”

“I’ve s-slept enough this week,” he murmured, placing another kiss on the edge of her lips. “I’ve slept enough to l-last a lifetime.”

In a flash of red hair, she turned over, sitting up.

“Well I haven’t,” she rebutted with a smile, taking him by the hand. “So fall asleep with me.”

Odin followed her, crawling towards her. She pushed the bed covers aside, letting both of them slip comfortably under the blankets.

The room was so peaceful, the only real distinct sound coming from the older boy’s short-lived, raspy laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Ava whispered, turning on her side to face him.

He didn’t answer, only leaning in to give her another kiss on the mouth before pulling away and leaning over the side of the bed, rummaging for something underneath. Ava watched, lifting herself up to rest her head in her hand.

“You looking for your little fox friend?” she asked, not bothering to hide her mischievous grin. Eyeing the exposed skin stretched over the thinness of his hips, the girl exhaled deeply, looking away.

“This,” he stated, rising up with a square of canvas in his hand, “is f-for you.”

She knew it was her by the hair.

The girl in the portrait was smiling a very small and almost unrecognizable smile by the viewer unless they looked,  _really_  looked at her. It was warm and vibrant, yellows and oranges sparking from the satin sheen of her red hair. Undoubtedly, this painting would draw the attention of any passerby in its color.

Ava wanted to say something, but what was there to say? He had taken her image and turned her into art.

Was this how he saw her? As a work of art? Meticulous and intriguing, made with a purpose and reason?

“Odin.”

She placed a hand on her cheek, then over her chest.

“Thank you.”

“I wanted to g-give it to you s-sooner. It was for y-your birthday,” the teenager commented, looking from her to the painting. 

She was moving closer, examining each and every brushstroke. The dim light of the room shone through the canvas skin like a womb, incandescence in its golden glow. There in the shadow beneath her eye, was black ink writing.

“Turn it over,” Ava prompted. Intrigued, she reached out, moving the canvas around to see the words.

Unmistakably in his hand-writing was the sentence, “The sun is a girl, and she is here, walking on Earth.”

Ava took the painting, placing it on the floor on her side of the bed.

“I’m not r-really a poet,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.

Her reply was sure, definite in her words as she shrugged.

“Neither am I. But I still write. Sometimes about you.”

He watched her, resting his head against the pillow.

“What do you s-say?”

Ava joined him, mirroring him and wrapping her cold feet around his knees. She answered him, smiling at the shudder that coursed through his body.

“I write about how I feel like I’m home near you. Like how in a crowd, or in the chaos, I feel safe with you around.”

She curled up closer, bunching her hands at the front of his shirt.

“It feels like it makes sense. At school, or at the grocery store, or on a bus. Anywhere, any place, I look at you and it all makes sense.” 

Perhaps this was the hearth of a home she had been looking for. Not made of stones and mortar, but something so much more alive and human. Perhaps, she hoped, maybe she could be the fire for that hearth. She was warm on winter nights, that much she was sure of.

She was tiny in his arms, he knew this; so with great care, he held her as they fell silent, making the room calmer.

There was no need to know the time, at least not for now. Because while the world sleeps, life still carried on in the trees, and on the forest floor, or even in the stars, reunited gods and goddesses watching the Earth’s rotation with pious curiosity.

They fell asleep, side by side, safe and sound.

———————

She woke in the very early hours of the morning. Lightly, careful to not make any noise, Ava tiptoed from the room, opening the door and peeking into the hallway.

The redhead was sure, with every bone in her body, that this house was haunted.

Yet, it didn’t stop her from treading through the house on bare feet. The bizarre ghosts that took refuge in the walls and stairwell and under the floorboards only seemed to be bystanders to the living.

For once, Ava did not mentally plead for anything to come out and get her. She only stepped down the stairs, paying her respects to those who had once lived in this house so many years ago.

If the rest of Odin’s family were here to meet her, what would they say about her?

She turned into the kitchen, hoping to observe the very first promise of the sunrise when she heard scratching coming from the table.

With a gasp, Ava nearly stumbled over her own feet, then quickly realized it was only Magpie, her eyes wide and bright at the other girl.

“Magpie,” Ava whispered, placing her hand over her heart. “I’m sorry. You scared me.”

“It’s quite alright,” she whispered back. She was holding a black colored pencil in her hand. A series of drawings were scattered about the table, some torn, some crumbled and tossed to the floor.

Ava stepped closer, peering at the drawings.

“What are you doing?” she asked, keeping her voice cheery. She had, after all, been exploring a house not her own. Despite its familiarity, the girl in front of her would be the only true witness to its stories.

“Well,” Magpie started, spreading out the papers in front of her, “sometimes when I wake up from a dream, I have to draw it, or write about it in some way.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” she simply replied. “It’s funny business, because I only remember bits and pieces, but-”

She looked up. Ava felt a pang of sympathy for the dark circles underneath the Arrow daughter’s eyes.

“I try my best.”

Ava wasn’t sure what to say. They were the same age, in the same grade at school, albeit Magpie had been absent more days than she could count.

She couldn’t place her finger on it. This girl looked like Odin, in her smile and laugh, even in the sharp knowing glare she could deliver at a moment’s notice.

Still, in a way her twin sisters were not, Magpie was elusive; as if she had a secret that if shared aloud, would change the Fate’s design forever.

“I should probably head back to bed,” the redhead spoke, her hands pulling at the end of her shirt.

“Ava, I meant to tell you something,” she stated warmly as the redhead began drifting towards the door. Ava paused, listening.

“Do you know how the Queen got her scar?”

Ava startled. “You mean the leader of the Pack?” she asked, blinking. She remembered that the dogs outside had been missing their leader, disheartened and jumbled without her presence.

Magpie nodded. She was smooth in her movements, swift as she explained further.

“She was in a fight. A  _real_  fight. A fight to the death.”

The Arrow girl looked out the window. The sun had barely crested over the horizon.

“She won because she had a stronger will to live than the other dog.”

She spoke, gentler now, hands in her lap.

“I think, Ava, that your will to live is stronger than whatever demon is haunting you.”

At her words, the girl felt her hands cross her chest, reaching up to curl over the tops of her arms. She could feel the scars, some old, some new, scattered and rough against her skin.

With a nod, she breathed, “Thank you” and began to exit the kitchen.

“One more thing,” Magpie called out, keeping her voice low. “Even when Odin’s gone for college, you’ll still come around, right? I enjoy your company.”

Ava’s heart lurched in her chest.

“Yeah. I’d like that,” she answered, the light of the sunrise sending beams across the kitchen floor. “Maybe we’ll even have a class together next year?”

Magpie sat up straighter at her reply.

“I’ll see you when you wake up, Ava Ire.”

She felt weightless as she walked away, carrying herself back up the stairs. The ghosts of this creaking house were waving her off, flying their white handkerchiefs in the air, handing her the pickax to go mining for more gold in her dreams.

Outside, the birds had already begun their lively wake as the girl slipped back under the covers, pressing her back against the still sleeping boy beside her.

It was easy to fall asleep and begin dreaming again.

——————-

“Rise and shine lovebirds.”

Ava’s head screamed when she was awakened by the sharp bright shine of the morning sunrise. Opening her eyes, she saw none other than Olai standing at the window of Odin’s bedroom, already pulled curtains sending dust throughout the air.

She blinked heavily against the pierce of light, feeling Odin stir beside her, their bodies tangled underneath the bed covers. The girl felt the crick in her neck as she realized her face had been nestled in the curve of his collarbone for the past few hours.

“Jesus Ch-Christ, Olai,” Odin groaned, shielding his face from the light.

“Close, but they don’t mention me in Sunday School,” he deadpanned, turning to face the two teens. He raised a brow at the way they were entangled together, their bodies slowly getting up, still groggy with sleep.

“I took the liberty of making breakfast for everyone. Hurry up and get dressed before it’s all gone,” he stated, nearly chuckling to himself as he left the room.

Odin sat up, squinting at the spot where his brother had just been.

“ _That’s_  n-not suspicious at all.”

Ava yawned, stretching in front of her before plopping back down on the bed.

“Maybe a bug crawled into his brain through his ear last night,” she grinned. “And ate all the mean parts.”

Odin pushed the bed covers off, catching the contagious yawn in his own throat. “That’s gross,” he said, standing up woozily. “But I l-like your imagination.”

He went to his dresser, taking out a pair of jeans and tossing them onto the bed.

Ava pulled her own jeans out from her bookbag, standing up and slipping in one leg after another.

“I know how to finish that poem,” she spoke, pulling her hair over her shoulder, running her fingers through it. “The one on the back of that painting?”

“Y-Yeah?” He was taking off his shirt, the silver of his scar nearly glistening in the sunlight.

“Yeah. ‘The moon is a boy, and he swims in the sea. The stars ask the sun, why do you rise every morning if he’s not there? Because, she says, I know he’s still looking after me.”

Odin turned, a smile creeping over his face.

“That’s r-really good Ava. I l-like it.” 

She looked away, studying the paint splatters in the wall as he struggled to put on his jeans. An inevitable blush burned over her face. This time, with her arms crossed, she didn’t feel embarrassment, but knowing in her nervousness.

She knew she wanted to wake up beside him every sunrise.

Remarkably enough, as they descended the stairs, Odin was sure he knew he wanted to fall asleep beside her every moonrise.

The twins were already scarfing down their second plate of pancakes when they entered the kitchen. Odin seemed a little startled to see even Magpie awake, sipping at a cup of coffee, composed at the end of the table.

Olai waved a hand at their plates at the table, telling them there was also bacon and grits. As if there was some secret he was unaware of, Odin shot Ava a skeptical look before speaking up.

“Okay, w-wh-what’s the deal? Did we w-win the lottery or s-s-something?”

His brother acknowledged him, the muffled shouts of Raven and Crow intermingling as he shot them a look to hush.

“Someone bought all your rabbit furs.  _All_  of them, every single one. He came by this morning and his offer was too good to refuse.”

Odin gaped, blinking quickly, before letting out a laugh.

He knew this should be cause for celebration, especially in the fact that this deal had even made Olai of all people pleased, but Odin stopped himself, glancing down at Ava.

She was drawn back, cradling her elbows, her still injured hand wrapped tightly around her small bones.

“I…I need s-some air,” he mumbled, stepping around his brother and out the screen door. It shut with a clatter, causing Raven and Crow to sit with their knees on the chairs, trying to see where he was going.

Ava looked up at Magpie, who simply raised her brows. In that moment, the teenager could see so much of him in her, in all their unspoken understandings and quiet insights.

She really was her brother’s other half, wasn’t she.

Ava followed him, telling the sisters she would be right back as she stepped into the morning sunshine. It was going to be a hot day, that much she could tell by the cacophonous chorus of the cicadas.

She saw him standing by the corner of the house with a cigarette in his mouth.

There was no hesitation, no fear as Ava strode towards him, confident in her voice when she stood in front of him, his body towering over her’s in the shadow of the house.

Sure, he was much taller than her, but that wasn’t going to stop her from saying what needed to be said.

“Give it here,” she stated, holding out her hand.

“It’s already  _lit_ ,” he muttered, the cigarette still hanging between his lips as he spoke.

He sighed through his nose as she plucked it from his mouth, holding it between her middle and index finger. The smoke curled hazily around them as she looked him dead in the eyes, lifting the cigarette to her lips and sucking in the grey plume.

“Um…” Odin watched, confused, as she drew back to cough, the ashes of the fire flickering hotly with her breath.

Clearing her throat, she spoke, “I’ve just smoked your last nasty cigarette Odin Arrow.” She let it fall to the ground with a flick of her wrist. “And that’s the end of that.”

He wasn’t sure what to say as she rubbed it into the ground with her bare foot. There was a muffled sizzle as her skin smothered the cigarette.

“You kn-know, an apathy f-for pain isn’t always a good thing,” he remarked as she stood by his side, resting her back against the house.

“Really? How so?” she questioned.

He widened his eyes momentarily, biting back a sarcastic response.

“For one,” he answered, “it l-lets you know you’re alive.”

She stayed silent as he added, “And it k-keeps you alive too.”

Ava listened to the sounds of the trees, every sway and creak as the earth became warmer.

All at once, it began raining.

“What….?” She looked up, examining the sky. There were clouds, white and grey, moving quickly across the sea of summer blue. If she hadn’t known better, she would have believed the sun itself was raining liquid gold.

“Looks like th-the wolf is giving birth,” Odin stated, hands in his pockets as he peered up at the passing drizzle.

Ava laughed. “What does that mean?”

“It’s something m-my p-parents would say. During a sunshower, they’d l-look up and say, ‘ _Looks like the wolf is giving birth_.’”

He watched her as she stuck out her hand, the small raindrops plopping down in quick bursts over the lawn, over her skin, still faint with red lines and scabs.

“Stand in the rain with me,” she entreated, tugging at his wrist, sliding her hand into his. “Just feel the rain.”

She pulled him out into the sunlight, lifting her face towards the sky. The only thing keeping her from falling was her hold on his hands, their laughs mingling as she cried out, “Don’t let go, okay, don’t let go!”

There was light falling from the ceiling of this Earth, falling from her still beating heart, falling from his still breathing lungs.

And together, they just kept falling.


End file.
